The Grange Primary School

Grange Primary School is a Primary school in Shrewsbury with approximately 280 pupils. We take pupils from the term after they are 3 into our Nursery which is called ‘Saplings’ and is led by a qualified teacher. Pupils attending Saplings are fully integrated into the school having P.E and musiclessons in our school halls, attending assemblies and even staying for lunch.

Our school is organised into four ‘Phases’. Foundation stage children (those in Nursery and Recpetion) are in our ‘Phase 1’. Our ‘Phase 2’ is years 1 & 2, otherwise known as ‘Key Stage 1’. Our Key Stage 2 is divided into two phases with years 3 and 4 being in ‘Phase 3 and years 5 and 6 being in ‘Phase 4’.

The school has been through significant changes over the last 5 years. In September 2009 the former Infant and Junior schools became one primary school and the school had a significant amount of refurbishment and improvement works carried out. Unfortunately in November 2012 we were judged to have ‘serious weaknesses’ by Ofsted. Following this in September 2013 the school was the second primary school in Shropshire to become an academy. Since then the school has rapidly improved and this year we should see our best ever KS2 SATs results. These are exciting times for us and we are enjoying working more closely with the secondary schools, particularly Grange which we can now access directly. Pupils in Year 5 have enjoyed cookery and dance lessons delivered by secondary teachers this year.

We pride ourselves on having an excellent level of pastoral support in school. We offer a nurture group and have 3 trained learning mentors who deliver a range of programmes to support individuals and groups of children. We strongly believe that children learn best if they are happy and engaged in their learning. This year all of our teachers have attended trying in Kagan Cooperative Learning and are now skilled in getting pupils to work collaboratively in a way that moves all pupils on.

We have a thematic approach to the curriculum and try to make links between subjects wherever possible. Some of the topics covered include ‘Through the Looking Glass’, ‘Life Below Stairs’ and ‘Spies and Gadgets’. We are currently reviewing the topics to ensure that they meet the requirements of the new curriculum. Pupils in Years 1-6 learn Italian and pupils in Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 have regular Forest School sessions.We have a specialist music teacher in school and make use of sports coaches too.

We encourage parents to be actively involved in their child’s learning. All pupils are set weekly homework and also are expected to read regularly and learn number facts and phonics and spelling patterns. We also set online homework on Education City. We offer IMPACT workshops twice a year which aim to help parents to understand how best to support their child at home. We have a number of parent volunteers in school and always welcome any new ones. We also hold events throughout the year for families such as Easter bingo and Summer and Christmas Fairs.

Please have a good look through our website pages whether you are a child or parent of a child already attending our school or you are considering sending your child here. We are very proud of the achievements of all of our pupils. We hope that the information and photos on our school website give you a real flavour of the vibrant and happy school that we are!